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Tis the season for stealing! No, what? 7,000 NintendoWii U consoles were nabbed from a SeaTac Seattle Air Cargo warehouse on Saturday night. Get this--the getaway vehicles were two semi trailers. The burglars managed to use forklifts to steal the pallets of the gaming consoles. It is speculated that it was an inside job. Police authorities are on the lookout for two semi trailers with the branding logo of McKinney. However, more likely than not, these will end up on internet sites such and Craigslist and eBay. Considering that each unit costs $300, it's not crazy to say that the thieves walked away with roughly 2.1 million dollars. Like they say, it's the most wonderful time of the year!

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After launching its new 4G LTE service in Seattle days before the iPhone 5 launch, AT&T is now launching its faster data service in Tacoma, Washington, as well as Federal Way, Lakewood, Puyallup, and Auburn. Additionally, LTE expansion upgrades are now live in Seattle, Bothell, Bellevue, Kirkland, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Renton, Redmond, Tukwila, and Woodinville. AT&T plans to officially announce the enhancements tomorrow. Of course, you'll need an LTE-compatable AT&T device to take advantage of the faster speeds.

Yesterday we told you about SideCar, the community-powered ride-sharing service that's available in both San Francisco and Seattle. Today, the company sent out an update to its userbase announcing that all proceeds earned this weekend (November 9-11) will be donated to the American Red Cross to help with Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. If you're a driver, you'll still get to keep your 80% portion of the fare, so it's SideCar’s 20% split that goes toward charity. So if you're in Seattle or San Francisco and need a ride this weekend, keep SideCar in mind!

If you don't have an account, just download the SideCar app for iOS or Android, and enter promo code ANDRU1 for a free $10 credit!

SideCar, the popular ride-sharing service out of San Francisco, has made it's way up the West Coast and has launched here in Seattle. Curious about what a ride-sharing service even is? Well, the easiest way we can explain it is to have you imagine a taxi service. Now, instead of a professional taxi driver in a cab picking you up, it's someone who's been vetted by SideCar, driving their own vehicle.

If there's one feature to sway AT&T iPhone customers over to Verizon, it's the fact that Big Red has launched LTE in a ton of markets while AT&T plays catch-up. Tonight, AT&T closed the gap a bit with the launch of its LTE network in both Seattle and Portland, two major metropolitan areas that may have otherwise seen a hefty exodus when the iPhone 5 launches this Friday. Being that Gear Live is based here in the Seattle area, we started getting reports from a bunch of readers that their Lumia 900 devices were all of a sudden showing LTE connectivity. Sure enough, we confirmed it with our own unit, and AT&T followed up with a press release letting everyone know that LTE was now live in both Seattle and Portland areas. Readers are seeing speeds as high as 22Mbps down and 12Mbps up.

We've reached out to AT&T for information on just how large the LTE deployment is in these two metropolitan areas, as Verizon definitely has the entire greater region in each area covered in LTE.

We were able to get a look at the new Pirq app update, which is focused on bringing beauty to the free restaurant discount app. In addition to making the app look a bit more slick, Pirq also worked on bringing restaurant information directly into the app itself in a Yelp-like fashion, and finally, the company wanted to make it even easier to go through the process of finding a restaurant to eat at, to redeeming the free deal (no pre-printed coupons or pre-payments are needed, unlike apps like Groupon or LivingSocial.)

The tour of the app begins with the magazine philosophy. In order to get users to tap on a restaurant deal, a magazine approach is used. Big, polished, glossy images of delicious food, all from the restaurants. The app even pulls in featured menu items that are popular at the different restaurants. Read on for all the details.

For those that live in Seattle, you might have noticed the bird-like tumor growing on the Space Needle. Upon closer examination, you'll realize it's an Angry Bird. You might be asking yourself, what's going on? Well, it’s all for the sake of marketing.

The popular mobile game, Angry Birds, has taken over our phones, toys, apparel, a racing team, and now the city of Seattle. The 35-foot suspended bird, held by a T-Mobile slingshot, is a part of a marketing scheme to promote the newly themed game, Angry Birds Space, which was released on March 22.

Peter Vesterback went on the record saying, “We wanted to do all things space and Seattle is famous for the Space Needle, so that’s why we’re here.”

Sadly, the bird won't be launched from the Space Needle, but nevertheless, it stirred up quite a bit of media buzz around the Emerald City.

Here at Gear Live, we have a love affiar with Amazon. They've got our credit card numbers, our accounts are Prime, and the Kindles flow like wine. However, unless you choose overnight shipping, you still have to wait for the items you purchased. It's a small price ot pay for the convenience, but for some, instant gratifiction is what's missing. That may even be changing with Amazon, as the company will be venturing into the brick and mortar store business.

Those lucky enough to live in the Seattle area (that's us!) may soon be seeing an Amazon store popping up at a local mall. Amazon is exploring the idea, kind of a trial and error run, to see if they have a profitable market in physical stores. Amazon wants to provide an Apple-like store experience for consumers who want to buy a Kindle, for example. This is a brilliant move on Amazon’s part, as the Kindle currently is not under its full control in retail, being left to the whims of a retail associate at Target or Best Buy who likely don't know much about it.

Here's a video showing a five-day time lapse of the destruction of the south mile of the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle, an undertaking being done by Rhine Demolition. A photo was taken every 2 to 3 minutes from the 13th floor of the nearby Norton Building. The time lapse video was shot and edited by Marcus Donner of the Puget Sound Business Journal.

We talk to Michelle Warvel, the Barnes and Noble Nook User Experience and Design Lead at GDGT Seattle. Michelle talks to us about the new Nook Simple Touch Reader, the first real mainstream touchscreen e-ink ebook reader to hit the market, shows how it all works, and then tells us about how they settled on the unique shape and design of the Simple Touch Reader product. We will have more videos from the GDGT event.

Big thank you to Carbonite and JackThreads for sponsoring the show - be sure to check them out! Carbonite offers off-site backup of your computer, and you can get two free months (no credit card needed!) by visiting Carbonite and using promo code TPN. As for JackThreads, we've got exclusive invite codes that give you $5 to use towards anything you'd like.